Underwear and Sleep

Besides making women appear slimmer, wearing body-shaping undergarments can have some surprising side effects, according to a preliminary study conducted at Kyungpook National University in South Korea. For four days, five women who had never previously used a body contouring garment wore one shaped like a one-piece bathing suit under their clothing. Tests indicated that the garment's constant compression, though small, seemed enough to interfere with basic daily circadian rhythms. During the evening on days when the women wore the body shapers, their level of the hormone melatonin was lower, and their body temperature was higher, than when they didn't wear them. It's possible that this response could compromise sleep quality, because the opposite conditions— a rise in melatonin and a fall in body temperature—are normally involved in inducing sleep, according to researchers Jeong-Rim Jeong and Hee-Eun Kim. However, it's worth noting that the study didn't actually track the participants' sleep, and that they wore the body shapers during all their waking hours—perhaps more than most women do.